Le Central — Restaurant in Bristol

Bottom line: a delightful French bistro with absolutely delicious food, a casual, cozy vibe, and an excellent value. Something different in the East Bay. An underappreciated gem.

We’ve been going to Le Central for a few years and recently rediscovered just how good it is. The vibe is French bistro, complete with black and white checkerboard floors. It’s casual, relaxed, and cozy. It feels like French comfort food.

The menu is thoughtful and amazing for how truly delicious the offerings are. It’s a ‘who’s who’ of some of the best French dishes, without pretense or weirdness (no snails or frogs legs). Starting with the table bread, half of a baguette, perfectly toasted and partly sliced, with soft butter and some olives on the side.

The onion soup is full of melted Guryere cheese, caramelized onions, rich beef stock, and toasted baguette slices, served in a ramekin. It’s perfect and utterly irresistible. Pair it with a salad and it’s a meal.

The Salad Nicoise has perfectly cooked green beans, roasted fingerling potatoes with butter and parsley, roasted red peppers, a bed of arugula, a nice filet of perfectly poached salmon, and a mouth-watering lemon-caper compote. It’s hearty enough as a main course for lunch or dinner, and is deliciously satisfying (and I’m not usually a salad person).

The hamburger might be one of the best you’ll have. A hand formed patty of organic beef on a toasted Brioche bun, served simply with tomato and lettuce, cheese (cheddar, Guryere, or Roquefort) and applewood smoked bacon optional, and a side of ultra-thin and super-crisp potato frites (too good to be called mere ‘French fries’). We love burgers, and both think this is hands-down the best we’ve had in the area (it’s the spiritual opposite of Chomp burgers which are excellent in their own right but very different with many heavy, spicy additives that make for a ‘wet’ burger). Le Central’s hamburger stands on its own simply with the highest quality ingredients prepared perfectly (like the rest of the food).

Coq au Vin (chicken with wine) was a revelation. A half of a Cornish game hen (breast, leg, and thigh), braised in burgundy wine, served in a crock brimming with mushrooms, sauteed onions, and bacon, in a rich, thick, velvety stock, and a side of roasted fingerling potatoes. Just the smell made my mouth water before even taking the first bite! It was heavenly, deeply satisfying, and very hearty and filling.

There are always some specials, often including an omelet. Recently we’ve had asparagus and brie, and mushroom and Guryere, variations. They were spectacular, served with a side of potato frites. They turn brunch into a special experience and feel decadent despite the modest price. They offer a full brunch menu that looks yummy, though we haven’t (yet!) tried it.

Desserts are homemade. Our favorite are the Rochers (“rocks”), chocolates like turtles. Dark chocolate filled with the specialty of the day, various nuts and fruits. Order at least one if you’re stuffed and don’t think you can fit in anything else, but a plate of 4 goes down easily with tea.

The drink list is massive. In the spirit of a French bar there are dozens and dozens of liquors of every kind. A nice offering of about 20 wines (French of course), every one we’ve ever had has been a winner. Some beers, and even several ciders, apple and pear varieties, from Normandy!

This area has tons of typical bars/pubs/taverns, seemingly one on every block, along with Portuguese (Portuguese-ish) and Italian restaurants. Le Central stands out, both for being unique in offering a great selection of the best of the best of French foods, and for the amazingly high quality and reasonable prices. It’s one of the great, underappreciated secret gems of the East Bay area. If it was in Boston the prices would be more than twice as high and people would be raving about it.

We’ve been finding it hard to go more than a week...

I suppose it was on me to look at my confirmation email more closely to see that we would be forced to order from a $98 per person Prix Fixe menu. I would have been fine with this price tag had the food been exceptional but it sadly wasn’t.

My party of 5 was sat at a 4 top with a chair stuck at the end. Both the table and the chairs were uncomfortable and cramped.

The salad served with my undercooked crab cake was not dressed or seasoned at all. My duck breast was tough and gristly. I struggled to cut it. My confit had a huge knob of cartilage in it. My husbands lamb was also tough and under seasoned. The desert trio had one edible item on it which was the pavlova. The profiterole dough was too chewy and overbaked, the chocolate cream tasted like it was open in the refrigerator, the ube cheasecake tasted of walnut oil that had gone off.

My server was clearly miserable and not very attentive. I grew up in the service industry and have worked all positions in fine dining. I know how tough it can be but she was making an automatic gratuity of $110 from my table so it would have been nice to not have to attempt to flag her down repeatedly for something as simple as more water. I don’t often feel compelled to leave less than favorable reviews but when $660 is paid for such an underwhelming experience, it’s hard not to feel ripped off. Especially with how infrequently I splurge on pricier dining experiences.

It really is a shame because I love French food and this place is so close to my fathers house, but I don’t think I’ll be returning.

ETA:

Reading other dissatisfied reviews here shows a combative GM who is quick to place blame on the customer for not complaining loudly enough but also scolding those who complain. For the record; yes, we did eat our food. No, we did not enjoy it and no we did not complain to our sullen server.

Restaurant owners and employees know when their product is sub par. Getting glowing reviews from older, wealthy people who often base their perception of quality on price and presentation alone does not a good meal make. Even if their meals were stellar, the mark of a good restaurant, one that can confidently charge these prices, is consistency. Why gamble so much money on what could be an unsatisfactory dining experience?

It is uncomfortable for most people to give negative feedback, especially in person. Most don’t want to be perceived as making a scene or being difficult. Demanding that people have done so or refused to eat food that they literally paid $100 for in order for their criticisms to be valid shows a lack of understanding for the public and how to make amends to dissatisfied customers. While this behavior could make sense coming from some kid who just started at JWU and dreams of spending his days being inappropriate with underage staff at Olive Garden for the rest of his life, I would expect better from a restauranteur with this level...

I’d heard whispers about Le Central’s “charm,” so I stopped in on a quiet evening expecting classic French bistro fare with a touch of New England polish. What I experienced instead was a masterclass in culinary complacency and managerial absence.

The dining room was mostly empty, but you wouldn’t know it from how long it took to be seated. The host (I believe also our server?) greeted us with all the warmth of a damp sponge and deposited us at a table directly next to the swinging kitchen door. The smell of scorched butter and fryer oil wafted through with every pass. Très authentique, if the goal is to evoke a strip mall brasserie in decline.

The wine list leaned heavily on markup and nostalgia, offering middling bottles priced like collector’s vintages. I chose a chenin blanc that arrived room temperature and tasting suspiciously oxidized. When I politely asked if it had perhaps been left open too long, I was informed, without irony, that “it’s supposed to taste like that.”

My entrée, the duck confit, was presented with all the flair of a microwave dinner. The skin was flabby. The interior was dry. The plate was ringed with an inscrutable smear of something orange that I was informed to be sweet potato puree. It might as well have been squirted out of a Gerber pouch for all the flavor it lacked.

The side of pommes frites arrived limp and pale, with all the texture of cafeteria hash browns left under a heat lamp. I left most of them on the plate, though our server didn’t notice or didn’t care.

Dessert? A crème brûlée that had clearly been torched in a rush. The top was patchy and barely crisp, while the custard underneath was ice-cold in the center. Charming.

When the check arrived, it felt like the final insult: $70 before tip for one person, one disappointing meal, and one long drive home wondering how anyone in charge here feels pride in this experience.

I’ve eaten at bistros in Paris, Boston, and even tiny Vermont towns where the food is plated with love and served with presence. Le Central seems content to ride on its past reputation, and it shows.

Would I return? Non. Would I recommend it to anyone who actually enjoys food?...